Storyboard

Here are some photos of our storyboard:

We began storyboarding a week before our shoot. We initially did a timeline which we used to then add further detail and it made us think about where we would place titles etc. We used different colours for different types of shot eg-yellow was close ups. This allowed us to see if we were using variation of shots as this criteriria would make our opening sequence exciting and interesting.

We split up the jobs of the storyboarding to make it quicker

-India and James did the drawings

-I did the writing underneath identifying each shot

-Spencer sorted out the order generally helped with all jobs

The process of storyboarding was very long however without doing this I don't think we would have a set idea of the opening sequence. It made us actually walk through our sequence and try and overcome problems

Costume

Costumes 

Girl number 3

• Clothing 
• Loose clothing, black or white long strap top; she needs to look vulnerable
• Look
• She should look slightly dirty, as if she has been trapped in this shed a while; in order to achieve this we could rub coal on her and her clothes. This will give the affect that she is dirty 
• We want her wrists (where the ropes have been tied) to look red and sore, this will suggest a struggle. In order to achieve this we will experiment with make up and only consider it when shooting if it looks realistic 
• Make up
• We want her look washed out. In order to achieve this we will ;
• use a lighter powder than our actress would usually use and no blusher. 
• We also will use a light-nude lipstick or lip colouring, we want it too appear that she has little or no make up on. 
• We want her eye make up to be much heavier however, we want her mascara and eyeliner smudged to look as if she has been crying
• Her eyes should be bloodshot, this will add to the idea she has been crying 

Charlie Smiles

• Clothing
• Smart clothing, plain black suit with white shirt and coloured tie. Everything should be really neat to reflect the neatness of his character (see picture of suit)
• Glasses
• Look
• incredibly neat, everything looks smart (top button done up, shirt tucked in, tie perfectly done up etc...)
• Hair slicked back with gel (see picture of Simon from Misfits)
• Nails should be clean 

Shooting Schedule

Props List

Shed

• Rope
• Tea towel for gag

• Polaroids
• Red paint for the numbers
• Wooden Chair
• Chains
• Cork Noticeboard; divided into 4, with 4 separate pictures on it, one of which being the girl in the shed at the moment. 
• Fake Blood

House

• Radio
• Calendar with dates circled
• Toast (bread)
• Butter
• Food for inside the fridge 
• Cutlery; a knife 
• A chopping board 
• Plastic See Though Bags
• Cups,plates etc
• Briefcase
• Keys 

Moodboard

I have decided to gather pictures from our overall final idea to visualise what we intend to do and what we hope to achieve in the opening sequence.

Target Audience-22-30, primary-males,like socialising and horror film, well educated.

Actors- Ciara and James-James will be OCD and Ciara will be distressed kidnapped girl

Kitchen-OCD,neat,tidy,clean

Characterisation-Geeky,tidy,gelled back hair,suits,looks very ordinary

Shed-number four,ECU of girls hands etc,polaroids

Camerawork-close ups, Extreme close ups, medium close ups,Long shots, disorientation

The Cast

Distressed Girl, Girl Number 3: Ciara

• Ciara will be playing the distressed girl locked in the shed
• She has won an oscar at an early age
• She achieved an A* in GCSE drama
• She loves acting and is looking forward to taking up her role
• She is convient because she is in our group so she will be there at all times when shooting is taking place; eliminating the chance of delayed shooting due to unreliability

Charlie Smiles: James 

• James is a keen actor
• He likes acting and volunteering to act in our sequence immediately
• Like Ciara he is part of our filming group so he will be reliable and available 
• He is looking forward to getting into his role 

Editing

House scene

In this clip, before the man is cutting his toast he is removing his cutlery from the plastic bag. A series of jump cuts are used here. This looks extremely effective and contradicts the idea that everything is perfect. It highlights what he is doing and reinforces that what he is doing is extremely strange.

Shed Scene
Psyco Shower Scene


Similarly here, a series of jump cuts are used but for a slightly different effect. The jump cuts here make the audience feel uneasy and add to the scariness of the scene. The editing style is effective. We could use this technique in the shed scene to add to the idea of the girl feeling disorientated and scared.
We realise as Media students that using jump cuts could be quite risky as our examiner may not realise that we used them to add to the effect of the piece, and instead think that it is just poor editing. We will use the test editing time to see how effective these jump cuts are and use them if they look good and professional.


Vacancy

Vacancy, Section 8: Slow reveal of female victim

The first two minutes of this section of the movie uses a similar style of editing that we want to use in the first section of our sequence. Not much is giving away, we see CUs of her face, and her surrounding but and no long shots are used. In doing this we aim to achieve a sense of mystery, we want to hold something back from the audience so that they want to continue on to watch the film. 

The pace of this section here is also slow, we want to use this idea of a slow reveal to create a sense of long suffering pain and misery. At the same time, we want to show a lot in this section, we need to reveal to the audience elements of the story but at the same time be cautious not to give too much away. 

Other effects 

When editing we also what to create the effect that this girl, who has been captured, feels lost, uneasy and disorientated. In order to achieve this we want to use 

• blurring out shots to give us a sense of her surroundings from her point of view. 

The second picture of the first row could be similar to a shot we shoot. This still seems slightly blurred. This will add to her sense of disorientation, making the audience feel uneasy. 

• jump cuts as mentioned before
• blank screens. A blank screen would add to the sense of disorientation and again make the audience feel uneasy. It could be as if we are seeing everything from her point of view, and at this point she is blinking. 

Title Sequence - Credits Placement

When thinking about the placement of credits you have three main options:

• The first is to have basic, bold credits in the middle of the screen, this is the formal option to pretty much get the credits over and done with.
• The second is you could have the credits co-opirated into the actually film, e.g in a poster or replection on a window, this is a more modern way.
• The third is to have them on screen when introducing the actors/actresses, so we know which actors plays which role.

A good example of the first technique to place the credits is 'silence of the lambs'.





As you can see from this video the words are big and bold and right in the middle of the screen, this tells us that what is going ojn in the background isn't that important as they wouldn't be covering up anything that has any significance to the story.


A good example of the second technique is 'Panic Room'.






As you can see from the video the credits are in-corperated into the scene, this is more interesting than the third option and it tells us that the film is likely to either be clever or modern.


A good example of the third technique is 'Diagnosis Murder'





In this example the names of the actors only appear when you can see their faces, when it moves on to other actors then the names change. This is commonly done in dramas.


Conclusion


From the research we have done on the placement of credits we have decided to go with the first technique as it suites a horror film more than the others, technique no. 2 suits action or comedy films and technique no.3 suits TV dramas more than films. However we will not have the words in the middle of the scene as the audience needs to be focusing on what is going on in the opening sequence.

Location Stills For Our Final Idea

Here are some stills from our new location (my house)

As you can see the kitchen is much tidier than the previous location, it is more minimalistic and more realistic for an OCD person to live in.

The shed is small and cosy, it will really make the audience feel closed in on, and costraphobic. It will not look like a nice place to be in at all.

The garden is quite long and there is an easy route from the shed to the house.

 

 

As you an see there is able to be a good shot of the door from the hallway as the man enters the house. you can even have a shot of the door from the stairs.

 

Technical Research